


Aftermath

by MatrixFairy



Series: Witcher brain children living in the Accidental Warlord AU [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Inspired by The Accidental Warlord and His Pack Series - inexplicifics, Light Angst, friends support friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatrixFairy/pseuds/MatrixFairy
Summary: Voting for a change of how young witchers-to-be are trained is a joyous thing, but it does mean that a lot of old trauma is brought to the surface for a lot of witchers.
Relationships: Original Male Character(s)/Original Non-Binary Character(s)
Series: Witcher brain children living in the Accidental Warlord AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057958
Comments: 8
Kudos: 114





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Debt Is Terrible That Must Be Paid In Song](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25541416) by [inexplicifics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics). 



> I am back with more witcher brain children living in the wonderful world of inexplicifics' Accidental Warlord AU!

Crane is not the only one who leaves the great hall in a bit of a daze this evening. He catches a few snippets of conversation from his brothers, and from people from the other schools as well. They’re not the usual, loud and cheerful conversations, though. They’re subdued, almost awed, and many somewhat shock-y.

Crane absolutely gets it! He feels rather shock-y himself. They’re going to change the training! Their new little brothers won’t have to suffer the pain and exhaustion and just, plain misery that the training has been thus far!

Crane doesn’t look back on his childhood with any sort of fondness, but he’s come to realize that he hadn’t actually thought about how awful it really was, a lot of the time. Not until Aubrey brought it up last night. Crane had thought they’d removed the most awful part of becoming a witcher when Triss had made the testing potion, and they got rid of the old mages.

It takes a moment before Crane realizes he’s found himself standing by a window, staring down at the training grounds outside. He can see a number of witchers out there, running drills or demolishing some training dummies. He supposes that’s one way to work out their feelings. Crane’s also pretty sure there is a fair number of witchers roaming out somewhere on the slopes of the mountain, too. But neither training or going up the mountain feels like a thing Crane wants to do. But he also doesn’t feel like he’ll be able to just go to bed and sleep right now, either.

He wanders away from the window and walks aimlessly for a while. He’s not very surprised to find himself outside Romir’s door. Spending the night wrapped in his Bear’s arms does feel like a thing he wants to do.

“Romir?” he asks, knocking gently on the door. There’s no answer. Crane waits another moment, then carefully opens the door and peeks inside.

“Romir, are you here?” 

A quick look around tells Crane that no, Romir is not in here. Doesn’t smell like e’s been here since morning, actually. Somehow, that makes something like loneliness curl in Crane’s chest. Romir isn’t the only person he could go to, of course, but e is the person Crane _wants_ to go to!

He shuts the door again and sets out to find his Bear.

Crane checks his own rooms first, in case Romir had the same thought and went looking for him. E isn’t there. Crane continues to look elsewhere in the keep. The library, the baths, a few of their usual spots in the common rooms, even out on the training grounds. Romir is in none of these places. Crane even asks some of the other Bears if they know where e might be, but they mostly just shrug and grunt at him. Which is very unhelpful. But finally, Crane figures that Romir has to be one of the people who decided going up the mountain was the way to deal with things. 

It’s a big mountain. There are lots of paths Romir could have gone. Lots of places e could be. 

Standing at the gate, Crane glares up at the mountain peaks, far above the keep. Black against the deep blue sky. He’s not mad at Romir, not at all! He just really wants eir company tonight.

Crane closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, but there are too many mixing scents here for him to parse anything. With a sigh, Crane trudges out the gate and towards a path he and Romir have taken together occasionally. With any luck, he’ll be able to pick up Romir’s scent along it.

It takes half an hour before Crane finds Romir’s scent. He follows it for another hour. By now, the moon has risen, shedding a dim, silver light. It’s more than enough light for witcher eyes to see perfectly fine. And with how many witchers there are roaming around out here tonight, Crane doesn’t feel too stupid about having left his swords at the keep. He does have a nice, curved and serrated dagger hidden at the small of his back, at least. And three small flash bombs in a pocket. He’ll be fine!

A sound breaks Crane from his musings and he stops to listen. He’s not quite sure what it is, at first. Heavy, irregular breaths, interspersed with loud sniffling noises. It’s not until he sticks his nose up and scents the air that he realizes what he’s hearing, and then he’s running.

He finds Romir in a small clearing. The Bear witcher is sat on the ground, curled into a tight ball, arms around eirself, eir massive shoulders heaving with sobs. Crane feels a lump in his own throat at the sight.

“Romir,” he rasps quietly. He doesn’t want to startle em. Romir doesn’t really indicate that e’s noticed Crane, but Crane is pretty sure e does know he’s there. He moves closer slowly, and kneels down at arm’s length, hands flitting through the space between them. What he wants to do is launch himself at his partner, to cuddle em close and kiss em until the tears are gone. But he’s not sure if that would be welcome right now.

“Romir, can I touch you?” Crane asks as softly as he can. It still comes out whinier than he would want. Romir finally looks up at him, but just barely. Eir face is splotchy and eir eyes swollen and red. Another heaving sob shake eir shoulders and e nods jerkily. Crane shuffles closer and wriggles his way into Romir's lap. He wraps his arms around eir shoulders and tucks eir head into the crook of his own neck. Romir’s massive arms slowly encircle his own waist and clings.

The sobbing continues for another while, Crane isn’t quite sure how long. He simply buries his face in Romir’s hair and holds em. Slowly, the tears and the sobbing subsides into an occasional sniffle.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Crane asks. Romir gives a tiny shake of eir head, and makes a half-hearted gesture with one hand.

“Okay. Later, then,” Crane nods, and presses a kiss against the side of Romir’s head. He's not sure if he would have the words for it anyway. 

“Will you come back to the keep with me? It’s getting cold out here, and I don’t want to sleep alone.”

“Mm,” Romir nods.

They untangle from each other and get to their feet. Crane takes Romir’s hand and presses in close against eir side as they slowly start walking back.

The keep has gone mostly still and quiet by the time they reach it. They only see about half a dozen other witchers scattered about.

“Your rooms or mine?” Crane asks. Romir shrugs. Crane steers them towards Romir’s rooms, figuring that will help putting em at ease.

They don’t get all the way there. They round a corner, and nearly collides with Bern. The Viper jumps back and looks between them with something in between warmth and sadness.

“I was looking for you two,” he says quietly. “The others are in the eastern common room. Do you want to join us?”

Crane looks to Romir. Personally, he thinks that sounds kind of nice, actually, but if Romir doesn’t want to, he’ll stay with his partner. Romir hesitates for a moment, then e exhales slowly and nods. Bern smiles and turns to walk ahead of them back to the common room.

There’s a fire burning warmly in the hearth of the common room and there’s a large pile of pillows, furs and blankets in front of it. And in the pile Crane spots Aeik and Lucan pretty much sprawled on top of each other, with Andrei on one side of them, Kostya on the other, next to their fairly new Griffin friend. Bern goes and plops down between Kostya and the Griffin. Crane tugs Romir over and sits them both down next to Andrei. 

There’s some shuffling around and Crane finds himself spooned by Romir, with Andrei’s head on his stomach. Aeik and Lucan stay curled up in the middle of the pile, with Bern and Kostya using them as a pillow, and the Griffin curled between Bern and Andrei.

Crane has to marvel at that for a moment. If anyone told him two decades ago, that he would one day find himself in a cuddle pile with other witchers from all the different schools - with one of them even being his gods damned partner! - he would have either laughed in their face, or thought them completely insane! Maybe both.

None of them talk. Crane doesn’t know if any of them really have the words for it. Not yet, anyway. But when they do, Crane knows they’ll all have each other to lean on. It's what friends are for!

**Author's Note:**

> witcher OCs featured in this piece:  
> Crane Terrik of the Cranes  
> Romir of the Bears  
> Bern of the Vipers  
> Aeik of the Wolves  
> Lucan and Kostya of the Cats  
> Andrei of the Manticores  
> Madolin of the Griffins (who at the time this takes place would be named something else, as she is a trans woman)
> 
> Crane, Bern, Kostya and Aeik are mine. Romir, Lucan, Andrei and Madolin are my friend's.  
> [Here's what Crane looks like!](https://matrixfairy.tumblr.com/post/641772320389808128/the-witcher-to-go-with-the-medallion-i-designed)


End file.
